Qantas superjumbo forced to abort flight following engine failure

Qantas flight 94 was forced to return to LA two hours into its flight.Source:Supplied

QANTAS has denied that an engine “blew up” on one of its jets forcing 500 passengers heading to Australia to turn back to Los Angeles just two hours into their journey.

Flight QF94 departed LAX just after 10pm local time on Friday. Its 480 passengers were due to land in Melbourne at 7am the next day following a 15 hour trans Pacific journey.

A picture from one of the seat back TV screens on the flight showing the aborted flight heading back to LA two hours into its flight. Picture: Twitter.Source:Supplied

However, a few hours into the trip, the pilot shut down one of the Airbus A380’s four engines and aborted the flight ferrying travellers back to Los Angeles.

On social media, passengers said the engine “blew up midair” and that sparks were seen coming from the wing.

On Sunday morning, Qantas confirmed that flight 94 was turned back to LA because of an issue with one of the aircraft’s four engines.

The plane involved was a double decker Airbus A380.Source:Supplied

But they strenuously denied the engine was ablaze.

“The pilots followed standard procedure, shut down the engine, and the flight landed normally in LA at around 3am local time on Saturday. Engineers are inspecting the aircraft,” the airline said in a statement.

“Reports that the engine was ‘on fire’ aren’t correct; passengers may have seen some sparks before it was safely shut down by the flight crew.”

In 2010, an engine caught fire on a Qantas A380 travelling from Singapore to Sydney. A disc in one of the engines disintegrated destroying the engine with debris scattered on an Indonesian island. The plane safely landed back in Singapore with no injuries to those on board but it took five months before the jet could be repaired and put back into service. The plane involved in Saturday’s incident was a different aircraft.